Accounting for firms in ethnic wage gaps across the earnings distribution

Van Phan, Carl Singleton, Alex Bryson, John Forth, Felix Ritchie, Lucy Stokes and Damian Whittard
Additional contact information
Van Phan: Bristol Business School, University of West of England
Alex Bryson: UCL Social Research Institute, University College London
John Forth: Bayes Business School, City St Georges, University of London
Felix Ritchie: Bristol Business School, University of West of England
Lucy Stokes: Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)
Damian Whittard: Bristol Business School, University of West of England

No 25-02, DoQSS Working Papers from Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London

Abstract: Most studies of ethnic wage gaps rely on household survey data. As such, they are unable to examine the degree to which wage gaps arise within or between firms. We contribute to the literature using high quality employer-employee payroll data on jobs, hours, and earnings, linked with the personal and family characteristics of workers from the population census for England and Wales. We reveal substantial unexplained wage gaps disadvantaging ethnic minority groups among both women and men. These disparities occur predominantly within firms rather than between them and are especially pronounced among higher earners. The patterns vary significantly by gender and by ethnic minority group compared to white workers. Since most of the wage disadvantage for ethnic minorities is within-firm, our results suggest that the UK’s recent legislative reforms on firm-level gender pay gap reporting should be expanded to encompass ethnicity pay gap

Keywords: Employer-Employee Data; Unconditional Quantile Regression; Decomposition Methods; UK Labour Market (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J31 J7 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-06-01
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Related works:
Working Paper: Accounting for Firms in Ethnic Wage Gaps Across the Earnings Distribution
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